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"trauma"

This January I shadowed Dr. Ruth Selvidge, an Emergency Department (ED) physician at Natividad Medical Center (NMC) for a week. NMC is a Level II trauma center and it is located in Salinas, California. The ED at NMC consists of a triage area at the front where patients are first reviewed by physician assistants and nurses. Based on this first examination, the patients are either discharged or they are sent to the back of the ED for further examination by the ED doctors. This is where Ruth steps in. Her job consists of examining these critically ill patients and determining the proper treatment. Ruth is usually accompanied by one or two ED doctors during her shifts, but there are some instances where she is running the ED by herself. She has 23 years of experience and was recently assigned as the temporary Assistant Director of the ED.

During this externship I shadowed Dr. Selvidge and discussed the cases with her. I learned about filing charts, illnesses and diseases, the scribe program at NMC, residency programs, and what a day looks like for an ED doctor. I learned a lot because Ruth always took the time to review the cases and explain their differential diagnoses. I observed interesting cases because, as Ruth put it, I brought a “black cloud” to the ED since every time I stepped in there were more trauma cases than usual: car accidents, gunshot wounds, stab wounds, among others.

Ruth informed me that the hardest part of her job is the humanitarian aspect. She explained that recently doctors are in front of a computer far more than with patients, due to the way information is archived.

I would like to begin by saying that I would recommend this winter shadow to anyone who is interested in medicine, even if that desire is not a burning passion. Not only was this shadow informative, but even more importantly, it was inspiring. Reed has often been sighted as basing much of its educational philosophy on the importance of theory rather than practice. At times this type of education has left me wanting to see more implementation of what I was learning. This shadow illustrated a physically hands on application of all the science that I had enjoyed so much at Reed. In other words this shadow gave me a very specific idea of a career I could work towards, which is something Reed often neglects to provide for its students.

The shadow experience itself involved a week shadowing emergency room Doctor Ruth Selvidge. The first shift I observed was the day after I arrived. It was a cacophony of sensory input that was exhilarating and the hours flew past. The only indication that it had been ten hours was my physical fatigue. I spent the rest of the evening parsing apart what I had seen during the day, and what I had thought and felt. One of my first, most vivid impressions was the people.

Every part of the job involves contact with people, however those that initially caught my attention were not the patients, but the other doctors, nurses and staff. They were some of the most patient, considerate, smart, funny and talented people I had ever seen working together in a workplace. I arrived expecting to be amazed by the patients and ailments and traumas, but instead found myself enjoying every snatch of conversation that the staff had time for. This highlights my other first impression, which was that there was hardly anytime down time. For a work environment that could rupture into a high stress situation with a single phone call, everyone treated one other with respect and kindness. It was one of the best teams I’ve seen. For me it was the first time I witnessed a job that I wished I could really be a part of.